{"id":17097,"date":"2018-11-20T18:50:18","date_gmt":"2018-11-20T17:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/blog\/?p=17097"},"modified":"2018-11-20T18:50:18","modified_gmt":"2018-11-20T17:50:18","slug":"furtive-ferrets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=17097","title":{"rendered":"Furtive ferrets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What do the words <strong>furtive<\/strong> and <strong>ferret<\/strong> have in common?<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/blacktigersdream\/13184552584\/in\/photolist-m65h99-atKCc9-7emk5m-frv3-4GtPtE-5ofZg6-aEAKq-cj7Kr-91qjaG-fdqMGN-egHmVY-axVyKf-4GtQUG-3WvtGq-9LZQDn-bUpwmH-e37ot5-7pkskU-5B4cTe-5VW5Hk-7zjTZ-4nP7Xc-5VVWWF-5Jp458-WvWoao-WvWtFd-2udeof-WnPuaM-4rvPD-65Wf8m-9runez-aD1QWy-7q5QGj-pe8Qh-86y4Zt-4xLnN3-4xGbyg-nzgDA-5TB4gs-8VxD6n-6ziCH6-66ERHy-5deLmp-m8oJHx-9pi2ao-7ekhEP-5Wj4QZ-c8d1t-5VVPNt-66EUGN\" title=\"ferret\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7051\/13184552584_cf582f0fdc_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" alt=\"ferret\"\/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>They come from the same root &#8211; the Latin word <em>f\u016br<\/em> (thief).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Furtive<\/strong> comes from the French <em>furtif<\/em> (stealthy), from the Latin <em>f\u016brt\u012bvus<\/em> (stolen), from <em>f\u016brtum<\/em> (theft), from <em>f\u016br<\/em> (thief) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/furtive#English\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ferret<\/strong> (<em>Mustela putorius furo<\/em>) comes from the Middle English <em>furet \/ ferret<\/em> (ferret), from the Anglo-Norman <em>firet \/ furet<\/em> (ferret), a diminutive of the Old French <em>fuiron<\/em> (weasel, ferret), from the Late Latin <em>furo<\/em> (cat; robber), a diminutive of the Latin <em>f\u016br<\/em> (thief) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/ferret\">source<\/a>]. <\/p>\n<p>Alternatively <strong>ferret<\/strong> comes from the Latin <em>furittus<\/em> (little thief) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ferret\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>The Latin name of the ferret, <em>mustela putorius furo<\/em>, means something like &#8220;stinking robber weasel&#8221; [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/European_polecat\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p><em>F\u016br<\/em> comes from the Proto-Italic <em>*f\u014dr<\/em> (thief), from the Proto-Indo-European <em>*b\u02b0\u1e53r<\/em> (thief), from <em>*b\u02b0er-<\/em> (to carry) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/fur#Latin\">source<\/a>], which also the root of words for child in Germanic languages, such as <em>bairn<\/em> in Scots, <em>barn<\/em> in Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish, and barn\/bern in West Frisian [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic\/barn%C4%85\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What do the words furtive and ferret have in common? They come from the same root &#8211; the Latin word f\u016br (thief). Furtive comes from the French furtif (stealthy), from the Latin f\u016brt\u012bvus (stolen), from f\u016brtum (theft), from f\u016br (thief) [source]. Ferret (Mustela putorius furo) comes from the Middle English furet \/ ferret (ferret), from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,100,104,107,108,112,124,10,15,26,31,34,45,46,67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglo-norman","category-danish","category-english","category-etymology","category-faroese","category-frisian","category-icelandic","category-language","category-latin","category-middle-english","category-norwegian","category-old-french","category-proto-indo-european","category-proto-italic","category-swedish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17097\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}